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(03-22-2020, 04:40 PM)southgalawyer Wrote: Anyone have any experience with either of these drum sanders? Are these the same, other than paint and price???
My son builds guitars and is looking for a sander to use for thicknessing the tops and backs. He would prefer a double drum, so he can use different grits without having to change the paper out, but this is a much more economical alternative. The biggest issue would be whether the thickness is consistent all the way across the length of the drum. If the wood is coming out even slightly angled, that would be a problem.
Thanks for any input you can offer!
https://www.grizzly.com/products/Shop-Fo...Feed/W1854
https://www.grizzly.com/products/Grizzly...eed/G0458Z
I had a Delta 18x36 open ended sander just like those for quite a few years. The bed is adjustable so you can bring it parallel with the drum. I had no trouble sanding stuff from veneer to 8/4 stock within a couple of thou over the width of the drum. It was a very good machine, and I assume these will work just as well, as long as you understand that these are sanders and not planers. No kidding, 0.005" is a big pass on a wide hardwood board or veneer. 0.002" is more realistic.
John
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03-25-2020, 01:53 PM
(This post was last modified: 03-25-2020, 03:12 PM by GeeDub.)
Like a lot of tools there is a price point where things get better. Ease / reliability of alignment and paper changes seem to lead the way. I just urge caution so that you don't buy yourself something to complain about ;-)
I can thickness pretty accurately, change paper with ease and find the drum sander to earn its rather monstrous footprint because of these traits. If adjustments and alignment were problematic (I have not readjusted mine since it was setup years ago) and paper changes were the cluster that so many drum sanders are, I would send it down the road.
Just to qualify thicknessing; even things I run through the planer get some attention before becoming part of a piece of furniture. I find the drum sander to be one of those tools that you need to have a certain level of performance before it becomes truly useful.
When I was young I sought the wisdom of the ages. Now it seems I've found the wiz-dumb of the age-ed.
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Along with GeeDub's post, you must add a certain level of experience, before it becomes truly useful. Once you can used to the fact that these are not dimensioning (although the do remove a minute amount of thickness), then you're on your way to getting acceptable results. Also, you must go through the grits, to achieve an acceptable surface.
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Emphasize that he will need a dust collector, if he doesn't have one. These thing generate mountains of very fine dust, and the collector is not only needed for health reasons but without DC the dust pile up on the work piece on the infeed side making life generally miserable.
I started with absolutely nothing. Now, thanks to years of hard work, careful planning, and perseverance, I find I still have most of it left.
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I had the Grizzly I bought it on CL for $450. It has since been replaced by a SuperMax 25/50. I ended up having to put a new motor in it because It started to pop the breaker under the lightest of use. I was always fighting the feed belt alignment. Because of all the belts, pulleys, and bushings it is noisier then my SuperMax. The manual says to libricate all of the bushings daily and a few of them are just a pain to get to. On the plus side, once you figured out how to get the sanding belt tensioned it stayed tight. The bed was easy to level. and it seemed very ridgid.. I talked my brother out of buying one and convinced him to go with a Supermax.
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Does your son do this for a living or just a hobby? If hobby then maybe can get by but if doing this for a living then he really needs to invest in something better. I have the open end model and its ok but not perfect but the open end was in my budget. Only way that will make changing paper would be to have hook/loop setup which is little easier. If this sander is in his budget I would say best can do to get best performance is only take lite passes and not try to use it as a planer. But one of the other things that is needed to help this work would be a good vacuum system,if not all that dust will move around inside and cake up on material.
